A Tale of Chinese-Americana in Early California
- Sherman Gee
- Castro Valley,CA
- UNITED STATES
- 71
Deep in the Mother Lode country of Northern California situated next to the Feather River stands Oroville, a town appropriately named for the gold ore that was mined there since the early days of the California gold rush. In the late 1800s, Oroville was a bustling community that included gold miners, railroad workers, and small businesses that served the influx of Chinese laborers and transplants from the East coast. This was the setting where a young man of Chinese ancestry, Edward Wah Gee, was born in January 1910. He grew up here helping out in the family's business that consisted of a general store and boarding house for Chinese workers. Ed's father, Quong Leong Gee, started the business located at 1698 Broderick Street in Oroville after arriving from China's Guangdong province.
Tall, good looking, with a prosperous business, Quong Leong was considered an especially eligible bachelor in those days. In 1908 at age 48, he married a local girl, Mary Tom, who was only 19 at the time. It was an arranged marriage as was the custom in those days. Mary's family had come to California from China back in 1851, and they settled in Marysville, a neighboring town just south of Oroville. Quong Leong and Mary had two sons, with Ed being the eldest. The younger son, Herb was born two years after Ed, but Herb never knew his father because Quong Leong died only 3 months before Herb was born. Their mother saw that their future hinged on them getting a good education. So she sent the two boys to San Francisco to attend junior and senior high schools and to learn Chinese in the evenings. The two boys lived by themselves at the Stockton Hotel between Clay and Sacramento in San Francisco's Chinatown. They both graduated from Galileo High School and afterwards attended San Mateo Junior College and UC Berkeley.
It was at San Mateo Junior College that Ed met Mabel Lee, a San Francisco native raised in China. After graduation in civil engineering in 1934, finding work was hard for Ed because of the depressed economy and racial discrimination. So he went to China and worked for the railroad in Guangzhou, while Mabel taught English at Lingnan University, now known as Zhongshan University. Ed and Mabel married in Nanjing late in 1934, but their stay in China was short-lived because of the Japanese invasion of China. They returned to the US in 1938 with two young sons in tow. After arrival back in California, Ed felt he had to find a way to support his family without depending on the job market. He was virtually penniless at the time and would need to borrow money to get started. Nevertheless, he made the decision to go into real estate in San Francisco Chinatown where the family relocated.
In 1938 he became the first California licensed real estate broker in Chinatown. He opened his office at 838 Jackson Street across from the Chinese Hospital, and for many years served mainly the Chinese community in Chinatown. He helped many new arrivals from China find a place to live in San Francisco. His business, ably assisted by Mabel, gradually expanded to include insurance and property management. He became well known in Chinatown because of his command of English and Chinese (both Cantonese and Taishanese). He was also active in community affairs and served as president of the San Francisco Chinatown Lions Club. His real estate activities gradually reached across the Bay to Berkeley, Oakland and Fremont.
Seeking more open spaces for the children, he moved the family to Berkeley in 1945. His family, which had grown to include three sons and a daughter, soon needed a bigger house. Ed used his engineering design background to design and build his home in the Berkeley hills just north of the Berkeley campus. To no one's surprise, all the Gee children also graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in medicine, pharmacology, engineering and business.
As a student Ed was one of the early members of the Pi Alpha Phi fraternity, which was founded in 1928 and became one of the earliest Chinese student fraternities in the US. All three sons joined the fraternity and at various times served as chapter president. Being in real estate, Ed learned of a pending estate sale of the former Sperry mansion located at 2534 Warring Street. It was well situated near the campus and could serve as the "house" for Pi Alpha Phi. So Ed and a few dedicated alumni on the alumni association board submitted the winning bid in probate court. With this purchase in 1956, Pi Alpha Phi for the first time had a house of its own.
In later years, Ed and Mabel turned to philanthropy. They started an endowment and a scholarship fund to help the students of the fraternity, and they gave a share of Oakland real estate to the Pi Alpha Phi Alumni Association. Of course, they also wanted to give back to their alma mater, UC Berkeley. Many items of interest from the early days of the real estate business in San Francisco's Chinatown can be found under the Gee Family collection at the Bancroft Library. They also took pride in funding endowments at the Bancroft Library for students in Asian studies. When the new East Asian Library was built, Ed and Mabel became benefactors, and a study room now stands in their name.
Today the legacy of Ed's pioneering real estate business continues to flourish even beyond California. Back in Oroville, the piece of land on which stood the old family store and from which the Gee family heritage began was given to the City of Oroville as a historical marker. To commemorate its Chinese heritage, Oroville transformed the city’s Chinese Temple into a museum displaying early Chinese artifacts. Ed and Mabel subsequently sponsored a project to place these artifacts on the Bancroft Library website. The project was successfully completed, and the museum artifacts are now accessible online to viewers throughout the world.